"All that is" strikes me as a meaningless definition.
"God" is invariably conceived as a personage; a conscious, willful being, with emotions, likes, dislikes, &c.
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Is religion inferior to logic ?
- Thread starter zerogain
- Start date
"God" is invariably conceived as a personage; a conscious, willful being, with emotions, likes, dislikes, &c.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
The one is about belief. The other is about knowledge. But that is philosophy, so we don't go there.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No, there is a version in philosophy, where God is not personal. Stop treating all Gods as theistic. Learn to look beyond your culture.
"God" is invariably conceived? Every conception of "God" is identical? Hmm. I think you need to reconsider that position. I would suggest the the definition of the label "God" invariably varies. "God" as a label is meaningless.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
No, it is meaningless to you. There is no meaning without a human doing that. The correct sentence is "God" as a label is meaningless to me based on my cognition and assumptions. Learn to be precise and not snoopy. That is so subjective.
PureX
Veteran Member
So, atheism is nothing.
Why label it at all? Why keep asserting it and identifying yourself with it if it's nothing?
I think this definition is a lie. The true definition of atheism is the belief/assertion that no gods exist. But because the atheist knows he can't defend that assertion, he pretends he believes nothing. And yet there he is, asserting it over and over, every chance he gets. Because he wants us all to know what he really believes.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
A variant is that God is objectively irrational. Some of them are about the objective value of being rational. The problem is that, that is subjective. They subjectively dislike subjectivity and believe they are better, because they are objective. It is psychology and not science or evidence.
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ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
It denotes the absence of a set of fairly common beliefs.
I think you're terrified of the thought that if you have no objective reason to believe something then the rational thing to do is not believe it (even if you can't know that it's false). I think you're so scared by the logic that you have to pretend that it doesn't exist.
If you can make up things and say that I believe them and I'm lying about them, then I can do the same with you.
The faith-based thinker and the critical thinker use different methods to determine what is true about the world. All I have to offer him is reasoned, evidence argument, which is not his currency for belief, and all he can offer the critical thinker are unfalsifiable claims, which have no persuasive power the critical thinker.
Listen to what? People's unfalsifiable beliefs about gods or afterlives? Why?
As for "speaking the language of the heart," that's a euphemism for expressing thoughts that arise from outside the cortical centers that allow us to reason using language and rules of inference. It's where hunches and gut feelings and hopes and dreams live. None of those is appropriate for determining what is true about the world, just what is true about ourselves. They are necessary and valuable experiences, an important species of conscious content for determining what makes us happy, but not for deciding how the world outside of our bodies and brains works. We need analytical neocortex for that.
And of course, your de rigueur, gratuitous demeaning of rigorous thinkers. Tell the thread how offended you are to have your special way of knowing rejected by critical thinkers without using those words.
I wouldn't call that a fact. For me, facts are demonstrably correct statements, meaning that they accurately map some aspect of our reality. Did you mean something that was would later be shown to be a fact?
The burden of proof arises when one wants one's claim to be believed and is dealing with a critical thinker capable of recognizing a sound argument and willing to be convinced by one. Absent either of those, there is no burden to support any claim.
I seek to understand the world and myself, not gods. Why would one seek for a god? And how? Praying? Reading holy books? Some believers tell me that they sense a god directly, but I don't accept their interpretation of what they are experiencing, nor that they can sense a god not apparent to all who have the same detection apparatus.
Is atheism in reference to an existent thing or an idea? If god or gods refer to existent things, then an atheistic position would be counter to the facts. If god or gods does not refer to existent things, but to an idea or concept, then the atheistic position is again counter to the facts, for the ideas or concepts do exist in the minds of those who hold them.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
It refers to a set of claims about reality.
PureX
Veteran Member
So, it refers to nothing. No counter-position: like gods don't exist. It's just an empty, meaningless, negation with and for no reason. And yet repeated every time anyone else expresses a belief in God.
I don't buy it for a minute.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
It refers to the lack of something. You know, like "lactose-free", for example. It's not a hard concept.
No, not for no reason. For the reason that there is no evidence or sound reasoning that supports the belief.
You can deny it all you want. Reasoning-free (another significant lack of something) denial isn't going to change anybody's mind.
Then atheism is specific to a specific set of claims about reality. The atheism is defined by the positive set of claims of the belief holder in a 1 to 1 relationship. A different set of claims would require a separate atheism, and so on. Atheism seems to be a religios term that contains the set of those who do not share a specific set of beliefs about reality. In this sense, to a Catholic priest, all Budhist, Hindu's, Muslims, and really, other Christian denomination that vary in the specific properties, expectations, and requirements of an entity would be atheists, those who do not believe in the specific set of claims about reality.
I see a non-believer in fictional religious claims about reality self-identifying as an atheist as legitimizing the framework and premesis of the religious. By arguing against theistic constructs in theistic terms, the non-bleiver creates a confirmation bias in the believer that there is really something there to argue about.
Why self-identify as not believing in some small subset of non-existent or impossible things of the infinite set of non-existent or impossible things. I believe doing so lends counter-productive legitimacy to that small set of non-existent things, and hampers the effectiveness in the arguments against such beliefs.
ETA: I also see it as self-defeating for the non-believer to lump many different claims about reality together as if they all refer to the same thing, same fact claims. It creates another opportunity for eliciting confirmation bias in the believers by creating the false sense that they are all arguing in support of same thing, when if fact they are not. It would be in the intrest of a non-believer aruing against a set of reality claims to highlight the many differences, not mask them.
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ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
It refers to a fairly broad category of claims: the various versions of theism. In general, of course, you'll find a lot of atheists will reject all claims for which there is no evidence or sound reasoning, which is a broader category still.
PureX
Veteran Member
The lack of something is nothing.
Theism is not a substance that you can have or not have. It's an idea that you either accept or reject.
Evidence is not defined by the conclusion reached.
Why self-identify in relation to a narrow category of non-existent things? Why not other things like a-unicorn, or a-spagetti monster, or a-little green men from Mars? Why play into the religious paradigm and create a positive bias in the belief-holder by playing within their rules, accepting the premise that there is something there to talk about? Why not strip religious content and refer to "claimed entity" instead of "God", where "God" points to an innumerable number of claims?
I couild see a self-indentifying term that represents the boroader category, the idea of rejecting all claims for which there is no evidence or sound reasoning, as being very useful, for then, by identifying as such and arguing against some specific entity claim, you are automatically grouping that entity, not with the category "God", but within the category of all imagined and impossible things, like unicorns and little green men from Mars. Instead of creating a positive confirmation bias, you are creating cognitive dissonance.
Who said every conception of God is identical? Of course they vary.
Most lead their own lives, in whatever place they live, interacting with other gods and taking no special interest in humans.
Sometimes they'll play with us, or punish us if we annoy them. Some are creator gods, some not. Some are born and die; others eternal. A few are are omniscient, most not.
The Abrahamic God is unusual in that He's conceived as a creator, a lawgiver and a judge, who has no peers and takes a particular interest in the activities of humans, demanding strict observance of certain rules and punishing those who violate his edicts.
Now you've got it!
Finally -- we've been explaining this since RF began.
To contrast it with the various beliefs of the theists?
It's the theists who seem obsessed with their gods and exceedingly annoyed at the idea of people who neither believe in nor feel any need for supernatural beings.
No! How many times do we have to go over this?
There are different kinds of atheists. Some believe there is no god. Most treat God the way you treat leprechauns or unicorns, with a simple lack of belief and no other opinions on the matter.
Lack of belief is what most of us RF atheists mean when we use the term. It's the definition generally used in serious discussions. Adding specifics is just constructing a straw man.
Among the various subdivisions of atheism there is just one feature shared by all -- lack of belief. This makes lack of belief definitive of unmodified "atheism." Any variations or specific peliefs need a modifier to distinguish them from plain atheism per se.
What is Atheism?
Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods. It is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about a person.
www.atheists.org
You did. You said:
The definition of "invariable" being:
invariable: not changing or capable of change : constant
This to me means you where saying there is only one unchanging conception of "God".
So, now there is no singular "God" entity, but many god entities. "God" is a label for a category of entities then.
Belief in the existence of which claimed entity is unknowable. You have used the singular "God" here instead of the plural "gods". Is agnosticism, in your view, something specific to a particualr god claim?
Should this not read: "Atheism: Lack of belief in gods."? Why the singular reference?
Regardless, my point stands. The label "god" points to an extremely diverse array of entity and non-entity claims. It certainly could not be applied to a single entity without a lot of contextual background to make it clear which of the countless entites are being referred to. This diversity in claims has made the label "god" meaningless as a pointer to a specific thing as opposed to simply representing a very broad and ill-defined category.